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Innkeeper
"A private room’s a gold piece each. Don’t blame me, blame the festival. Otherwise, common quarters is only half a shilling. Bed bugs come free." Advanced (Core) Innkeepers own and run the establishments that allow the economy of the Old World to flourish. Many innkeeping families have owned their establishment for generations. They cater to all customers, regardless of social class, so long as they can pay. In a time when the majority of folk are insular, Innkeepers have learned information is valuable and they’re usually good for news from afar. A number of Innkeepers supplement their incomes by making introductions between customers. This varies from finding agreeable companionship for their guests to putting interested parties in contact with those who can permanently remove troublemakers with no questions asked. Main Profile Secondary Profile Skills: Blather or Lip Reading, Charm, Common Knowledge (the Empire), Consume Alcohol, Evaluate, Gossip, Haggle, Perception, Read/Write or Sleight of Hand, Speak Language (Breton, Kislevian, Reikspiel or Tilean), Trade (Cook) Talents: Etiquette or Streetwise, Dealmaker or Street Fighting, Strike to Stun Trappings: Inn, one or more Servants Career Entries Burgher, Farmer, Servant Career Exits Burgher, Farmer, Fence, Merchant, Outlaw, Smuggler Every Man’s Hero In towns and villages throughout civilised lands, taverns are a welcome retreat for hard-working men – a place where they can drown out the rigours of life with ale and song. As a consequence, innkeepers enjoy a respect among this class usually accorded only to priests. Those same priests castigate innkeepers for promoting drunkenness, gambling, and other vices which lead men astray from family and temple. In remote areas, innkeepers are the saviour of all weary travellers. When darkness falls, the warm glow of the roadside inn is a welcome beacon to those abroad. Rural inns are not just refuges from the chill of night. Many, particularly those along the forest roads, are effectively small fortresses. Palisades protect them against the fearsome denizens of the dark, and their innkeepers are renowned as much for their fighting ability as for the quality of their ale. Old Spot Perhaps the most famous innkeeper in the Empire is the Ostermarker, Jander “Old Spot” Wergnen. His inn, the Old Spotted Dog, enjoys a thriving trade, despite his tavern’s location in the foothills of the World’s Edge Mountains. Old Spot treats his guests as kings, and serves Lector’s Tipple, annual winner at the Bechafen Beer Fair. Even dwarfs grudgingly acknowledge the Old Spotted Dog as a passable place to drink, and each year a pilgrimage of halflings arrives from the Moot to taste his succulent pies. However, it is not only the quality of his establishment that secured Wergnen’s fameTen years ago, during one of Ostermark’s worst winters, a giant stomped down from the mountains through blinding snow. It sniffed out the aroma of the Old Spotted Dog, and the few trappers and traders holed up in the inn fled into the storm. However, Old Spot stood between his tavern and the giant, blunderbuss loaded. The giant ignored the innkeeper’s warnings to turn back, and so Old Spot fired. Unfortunately, snow had dampened the gun’s black powder, and it misfired. The giant grabbed him and swallowed him whole. Amazingly, the innkeeper survived the descent into the pitch black of the monster’s gut. And more amazingly, he managed to retain his wits about him. Fumbling for his tinderbox, Old Spot struck a light to search for a way out. The sparks ignited gastric gas, and in the resultant explosion, Old Spot was hurled to safety in a shower of gore to land in a snowdrift. The giant, clutching its spilled intestines, toppled and died. Its skull now adorns the front entrance, a trophy attracting many visitors who wish to hear the tale from the great man himself.